motivateyourself.net

Today’s speech was the kind of speech that reminds me why I do Motivational Speaking. A fantastic group of grade 8’s from an unforunately lower socio-economic background was the audience I was responsible for motivating today. As was explained to me before the show, they are the type of students who aren’t normally given the opportunity to listen to a Motivational Speaker.

They were a great and receptive group of students to work with…VERY energetic and just looking to have their buttons pressed the right way. I was only given 30 minutes (my speech normally lasts at least an hour) so I had to wrap up an awful lot of points in a short period of time. I received a great ovation after the speech with thank-you’s from teachers and students alike. The Principal of McEvoy Middle School even spoke to the organizers of the event from Central Georgia Technical College to let them know that students had been going up to her to let them know how much they enjoyed it. For a student to go up to an administrator and tell them thank you…that is a rare treat and I’m so glad that I was able to play a role in it.

It’s been a fast and great trip down south. I’m still looking for Geena Davis and the rest of the Rockford Peaches and I’ll hopefully have the opportunity to come back and search again sometime soon.

See you in Toronto!

So I’m here in Charlotte, North Carolina on a quick 2 hour stop-over before catching my flight to Atlanta. From there it’s a 90 minute drive to Macon where I’ll spend the night and do a speech in the morning.

Three amazing discoveries so far..

1) While at the Toronto airport, I was going to pick up some gum when who did I find making a call on a payphone with cell phone in hand? None other than John Ferguson Jr., General Manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Amazing about it? His luggage had the NHL logo blasted on it. Now that’s what I call product placement.

2) The Charlotte Airport has so many local eateries at its airport. Between Sbarro, Pizza Hut and Burger King, I chose Burger King. It just sounded so Charlotte-y. I wish they had such food in Toronto…I’m sure I would eat there!

3) I thought about going to a sports bar for lunch but as I began to walk in, I saw a man, (GASP), SMOKING!!! In an indoor, public restaurant!!! (I’m only being half feceitous.) It seems like so long ago that smoking was allowed in public places in Toronto, I think I (and all of us) take for granted my clean air. And as I strolled around looking for the local eateries, I discovered that I couldn’t find a no-smoking sign anywhere. I didn’t see a smoking sign either, but still. You can’t go anywhere in the Greater Toronto Area without being hammered by hundreds of non-smoking signs.

Here, just a couple hundred miles from “Tobacco Road”, there’s still a lot of progress to be made.

See you all in Georgia.

1:40 am and about to shut down shop for the night!
Heading to Atlanta early tomorrow morning for my first gig of 2007. What a neat way to kick it off by heading down to Macon, Georgia home to a great deal of history.

I got to go to Atlanta when I was 14 or so and visit a lot of landmarks…like the CNN Building and the Coca-Cola Factory! Ok…not historical landmarks, but very interesting and important buildings nonetheless.

I’m hoping to go to the Harriet Tubman Museum after my speech on Wednesday morning and enjoy some legit history before heading home on Wednesday night.

One other advantage to being able to travel…right now it’s -15 celsius in Thornhill. They’re calling for a high of +12 in Macon tomorrow! Giggity-giggity-goo!

Tonight I tried working on understanding newsgroups and metatags! WOW! We’re talking advanced techbnology now! By using those tools properly, it is supposed to increase traffic to your web-site and increase web chatter about you.

After a couple hours of browsing and reading, I think I’ll stick to cold-call E-mails!

I’m not very internet/tech savvy, so it takes me a lot longer to update my site than the average person with a computer tech specialist.

It took me most of the last four days to finally change around my programs/topics page. The page was a very important change for my site so that I could really show everyone EXACTLY what I talk about and make it easy to read.

I have such respect for those in the computer programming area. How the heck do they do it!? Coding is such a tricky area. The most simple typo like an extra / or > can completely change the complexion of your page.

As long as I live I will never understand how a computer understand what code is. How does a computer read code and how does it understand that a code means a certain thing?

Oh technology…you win this round!

For many months now I’ve contemplated posting a blog on my web-site as a chance to stay further connected with my past audience members and with those that are just passing-by. I wanted to be able to give people a little deeper input into what a Motivational Speaker actually does on a daily basis. There seems to be a misconception about the job that a Speaker only speaks. I believe that what a Motivational Speaker actually does will shock and amaze most people and it is my goal to try to provide everyone with insight into the real world of a Motivational Speaker.

I hope to be able to enlighten and entertain all of you and keep you informed on all of my adventures along my travels to various parts of North America. I will be updating the blog every day (or as much as the wireless internet on the road allows) and will discuss issues pertaining to Motivational Speaking, youth leadership and most likely, the Toronto Raptors!

I hope to see lots of comments and input from every single reader.

Be in touch.